Critics Choice Preview – Announcing Tuesday

The Critics Choice awards have been around for a relatively short time, since 1995, and is made up of a hodge podge of folks, many of which are Oscar bloggers themselves, like David Poland, Jeff Wells, Kris Tapley, Anne Thompson, Steve Pond, Nathaniel Rogers, Ed Douglas. They also include some actual film critics, like James Rocchi, Joanna Langfield and Zorianna Kit.

They give out ratings, or scores, for films that can sometimes be an indication of what will do well at their awards and sometimes not. For instance, An Education was rated higher by them than The Hurt Locker in 2009, but the latter went on to win the BFCA and the Oscar.

Like the New York Film critics, the BFCA prides themselves on their matching with Oscar. The truth about that is that they are really really good at picking what will eventually be the Best Picture nominees, particularly since Oscar expanded to ten, and then their weird procedure now. The BFCA is a bigger group than most critics awards but still not as big as the guilds. Their demographic is all over the place, not unlike Oscar, and it is dominated by males, like Oscar. I haven’t counted exactly but I would estimate that it’s one woman for every five males.

The Critics Choice are better at predicting rather than pushing through borderline nominees. Drive, their pet film last year was mostly shut out by the Oscars. And in 2009, this was their headline after nominations, “Nine, Inglourious Basterds lead with ten nominations each. Avatar close behind with 9.”

As we now know, Nine was not well received by the Academy. The films with the most nominations does not always win.

Where the BFCA are weak is in the individual categories. That’s because members of the select branches nominate for the Oscars, not the entire voting membership.

Now onto predictions.

I am going to make the bold prediction that Les Miserables leads the nominations. I will predict it will earn nominations in Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actress X2, Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Costumes, Editing, Art Direction, Sound, Song. Give or take. If Rob Marshall’s 9 could lead with 9, you have to figure Les Miz will top that with, maybe, 10 or 11 nominations.

Whether this will be a big bump for Les Miserables or not will depend on which way the reviews go from here on out. Right now, Les Miz hovers at a 55 on Metacritic. The lowest ever Best Picture nominee was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which has a score of 46. But the lowest Best Picture winner to date is Crash, at 69. By contrast, Chicago has a score of 82.

Looper is my wild card pick. Something tells me the BFCA will see fit to give Looper many nods in various categories.

The predictions for the rest of the categories would be to take the temperature of what most people are predicting right now because that is what nominations will look like. Like any other critics group and the Golden Globes, it’s always important to take the nominations with a grain of salt. They can help but they can’t hurt. The guild awards can hurt.

The history:

2011’s Critics Choice nominees:

BEST PICTUREThe Artist+
The Descendants*
Drive
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close*
The Help*
Hugo*
Midnight in Paris*
Moneyball*
The Tree of Life*
War Horse*

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
In Darkness
Le HavreA Separation+
The Skin I Live In
Where Do We Go Now?

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Buck
Cave of Forgotten DreamsGeorge Harrison: Living in the Material World
Page One: Inside the New York Times
Project Nim
Undefeated+

BEST SONG
“Hello, Hello” – performed by Elton John and Lady Gaga/written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin – Gnomeo & Juliet“Life’s a Happy Song” – performed by Jason Segel, Amy Adams, and Walter/written by Bret McKenzie – The Muppets
“The Living Proof” – performed by Mary J. Blige/written by Mary J. Blige, Thomas Newman, and Harvey Mason, Jr. – The Help
“Man or Muppet” – performed by Jason Segel and Walter/written by Bret McKenzie – The Muppets+
“Pictures in My Head” – performed by Kermit and the Muppets/written by Jeannie Lurie, Aris Archontis, and Chen Neeman – The Muppets

BEST MAKEUPAlice in Wonderland
Black Swan
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
True Grit

BEST VISUAL EFFECTSAlice in Wonderland*
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1*Inception+
Tron: Legacy

BEST SOUND127 Hours
Black SwanInception+
The Social Network*
Toy Story 3

BEST ANIMATED FEATUREDespicable Me
How to Train Your Dragon*
The Illusionist*
TangledToy Story 3*

BEST ACTION MOVIEInception
Kick-Ass
Red
The Town
Unstoppable

BEST COMEDYCyrus
Date NightEasy A
Get Him to the Greek
I Love You Phillip Morris
The Other Guys

BEST PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISIONThe Pacific
Temple Grandin
You Don’t Know Jack

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMBiutiful
I Am LoveThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATUREExit Through the Gift Shop*
Inside Job+
Restrepo*
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
The Tillman StoryWaiting for Superman

BEST SONG
“I See the Light” – performed by Mandy Moore & Zachary Levi/written by Alan Menken & Glenn Slater – Tangled*“If I Rise” – performed by Dido and A.R. Rahman/music by A.R. Rahman/lyrics by Dido Armstrong and Rollo Armstrong – 127 Hours*
“Shine” – performed and written by John Legend – Waiting for Superman
“We Belong Together” – performed and written by Randy Newman – Toy Story 3+
“You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me Yet” – performed by Cher/written by Diane Warren –Burlesque